Exclusive: Intel Opens Fabs To ARM Chips

As the old adage goes, if you can't beat them, join them. Well, that's exactly what
Intel finally decided to do relative to its lagging mobile business.

At the ARM developers conference today, Intel partner
Altera announced that the world's largest semiconductor company will fabricate its ARM 64-bit chips starting next year. The announcement sent shockwaves through the technology industry as Intel is desperately trying to break ARM's supremacy in the mobile market. Unlike Intel, ARM Holdings of the U.K. doesn't manufacture chips but its designs are licensed and used worldwide in the mobile industry.

"It's huge. Imagine ARM's most powerful and technologically advanced 64-bit processor built on Intel's leading-edge fabs. A duo that will be hard to beat," explains Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64.

Intel opens world's leading-edge factories to archrivals

But this is just the beginning of a much larger endeavor for the chip giant as Intel is even willing to compete with semiconductor foundry leader TSMC for the business of its fiercest rivals, like
Nvidia or
Qualcomm.

"Intel will build
Apple's A7, Qualcomm's Snapdragon or the Nvidia Tegra for the right price. Now, the question is, are they ready to pay that premium [to ARM] and feed their direct competitor? But that would actually make business sense for everyone," adds Brookwood.

With Intel ready to open up its leading-edge factories to whomever is willing to pay a premium, chip prices could actually come down, with the other foundries (TSMC, UMC, GlobalFoundries, Samsung, IBM or SMIC) feeling the pressure to compete.